[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Volrat:
[Troubleshoot] Android Phone in Read Only mode - "Internal SD" is unmounted/damaged

Android model: VKWorld VK700 old version, 1GB RAM/8GB ROM, MTK6582, running Android 4.4.2 (Kernel Version 3.4.67 android@mht-05#1), rooted.

Problem: Phone works albeit very unstable. Looks to be locked in read-only mode. The internal storage was 1GB for apps, rest for the other various stuff including user data. Now phone sees only that 1GB, claims that "SD Card is damaged". ES Explorer claims "SD Card is unmounted". Can't mount it of course. I've put an external SD and that appears also to be Read only, but not sure about that (file explorers simply say copy failed).

Cause: Used an app (HKPHONEROMEDITTOR2014) that increases the partition size for the apps. Unfortunately it was set up for 4GB phones so it probably messed up my partitions/mount points, ebr's or something.

Tried:

Hardware reset/recovery does nothing, it says deleting stuff for 2-3secs, reboots, nothing changes. Uninstalling apps, making whatever changes and rebooting, phone again has all the same apps, needs the same updates etc. Copying files via ADB to say /sbin is successful. Reboot and the files are gone. Of course the same goes for apps. Install app, app works, reboot phone, app is gone.

Tried flashing the phone with various ROMS, from stock to custom, with various recovery images. Used two methods:

1) Via SPMultiPortFlash and .bin images, flashing fails at the end producing a CHKSUM(EBR1) ERROR.

2) Via SP_Flashtool and .txt scatter. Flashing is reported success. The progress is correct, everything should be ok. However boot into the phone, nothing changes. Selected Firmware upgrade, Format and download and download only, doesn't make a difference. Selected format flash, reported success. Again, nothing changes.

Installed busybox, checked parted and fdisk. Parted doesn't work (can't have partition outside the disk error). Checked fdisk, internal flash size is reported correct, two blocks start before they end

/dev/block/mmcblk0p1 Start 65: End 64
/dev/block/mmcblk0p6 Start 260033: End 64

however the exact scheme is followed by a stock VK700pro (same processor / ROM size) so I don't think that's the problem.

Included below are whatever I could think that might be of other help to troubleshoot.

Can anybody give me a hand? I am way beyond my waters here, I had zero knowledge about flashing / linux / rooting etc up until yesterday and my mind is all mush right now from all the reading...

vold.fstab

dev_mount sdcard /storage/sdcard0 emmc@fat /devices/platform/goldfish_mmc.0 /devices/platform/mtk-msdc.0/mmc_host
dev_mount sdcard2 /storage/sdcard1 auto /devices/platform/goldfish_mmc.1 /devices/platform/mtk-msdc.1/mmc_host
dev_mount usbotg /mnt/usbotg auto /devices/platform/mt_usb

vold contents:

brw------- root root 179,0
brw------- root root 179,1
brw------- root root 179,2
brw------- root root 179,3
brw------- root root 179,4
brw------- root root 179,5
brw------- root root 179,6
brw------- root root 179,7
brw------- root root 179,8
brw------- root root 179,96
brw------- root root 179,97

/proc/partitions

7 0 1254 loop0
253 0 524288 zram0
179 0 7605248 mmcblk0
179 1 1 mmcblk0p1
179 2 10240 mmcblk0p2
179 3 10240 mmcblk0p3
179 4 6144 mmcblk0p4
179 5 921600 mmcblk0p5
179 6 129024 mmcblk0p6
179 7 2097152 mmcblk0p7
179 8 4374016 mmcblk0p8
179 64 4096 mmcblk0boot1
179 32 4096 mmcblk0boot0
179 96 3858432 mmcblk1
179 97 3857408 mmcblk1p1